Ray Barboni said:
Curtis Samuel(3yr deal) 2020 1st for
AB (2yr) 2020 3rd
Not sure which side of that you would be on, but I would rather have the AB side (especially if you are light on WR's). I'm not sold on the Panthers passing game and am not sure Samuel will amount to much more than being a good but not great fantasy WR (like a WR3 with so so WR2 upside). The bigger loss on that side to me would be the first round pick.
I still think AB will be a borderline WR1 (but it may take a month for him to get there). The $64,000 question is what does the league do with him? It's almost a given that the Patriots won't do anything and the league will have to intervene. There is a slight chance that the Commish finagles things and gets NE to sit AB this week under the guise that he doesn't know enough of the playbook. (Josh Gordon didn't play his first week with the team last year.)
I wouldn't rule out Brown returning to NEnext year if he does well, the team wins another title, and he mostly behaves. But all three of those are far from locks. Like all of us, I have no idea how many games Brown will be able to play this year. Based on prior incidents involving other players, I think Brown will be allowed to play and will stay off the exempt list in the immediate future. As I posted in here somewhere, Ben Roethlisberger had the same thing happen to him 10 years ago . . . a civil lawsuit was filed against him accusing him of sexual assault 10 years ago. He played the entire season (after which he ended up with another incident involving another woman and then got suspended).
So I will brazenly guess that Brown plays the entire season, doesn't get hurt, and does not get exempted or suspended. Based on that, NE has so many weapons and resources that I doubt he will see the target load he saw in PIT. Over the past 6 seasons with the Steelers, he averaged over 11 targets a game. My guess is he would be in the neighborhood of 8. There's only one football, and Brown, Edelman, Gordon, and White all will see a decent amount of targets.
Brown averaged 7.46 receptions, 99 receiving yards, and 0.73 TD a game in PIT. As a baseline, 8/11 of the targets would be 72.7%. I know it won't end up exactly like this, but 72.7% of those numbers would be 5.4 receptions, 72 yards, and 0.53 per game. To me that sounds about right in terms of what I would project AB at in NE after a month to ramp up. So projected over a 16 game season, that would work out to roughly 87 receptions, 1152 receiving yards, and 8 TD. (Remember, that's projected over a full season and Brown won't be playing 16 games and I am giving him a month to get up to speed that's reflected in those numbers.)
By comparison, Brandin Cooks put up 65-1082-7 in NE in 2017. Edelman didn't play that season and Gronk had 69-1084-8. That makes things a little easier to project for this year. In that 2017 season, Cooks, Gronk, Amendola, and Hogan accounted for 229-3264-22. I would guess roughly that amount of production will be split this year between Brown, Edelman, and Gordon. I doubt NE will use the TE spot much this year (unless Gronk comes back and even then that would likely only be for a few games).
Based on last year's year end results, those projected totals (87-1152-8) would have ranked Brown WR 13. Based on 2017 numbers, he would have ranked as WR7 or 8. That's my best guess with NE having who they have on their roster. I did not account that he might do more per reception because the NE offense might use him better or more effectively (but again that one is hard to be able to tell at this point).
Those numbers would go up if Edelman got nicked, if Gordon got suspended again, or if White missed a few games. Those numbers would go down if Gronk came back or Brady got hurt. If the NE defense is as strong as they appear, I would guess that the Patriots will be in no hurry to throw the ball a ton in the second half of games if they are sitting on a lead like last week. By that I mean, there may not be a ton of extra targets to come in garbage time or late in games.
And clearly Brown comes with a lot of risk that A) he doesn't get disciplined for the civil suit, B) there aren't more skeletons in his closet and no more lawsuits pop up, and 3) Brown can keep on the straight and narrow. And of course, we haven't seen Brown play a single snap with Brady and who knows how that will work out.
Anyway, those are my thoughts and projections. I hope this helps.